Unreality Check (#6)

Last week the Texas 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Tarrant County Community College v. Sims, that Texas’s state law prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sex also provides protections against discrimination for LGBTQ workers. The favorable decision provides state-level protections for LGBTQ workers for the first time under Texas state law.

The Texas appeals court’s opinion included language that interprets the Texas Commission on Human Relations Act (TCHRA) consistent with the recent US Supreme Court decision Bostock v. Clayton County that determined discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is a form of sex discrimination prohibited by federal law. 

In January, The Human Rights Campaign filed a “friend of the court” amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiff. The brief argued that Texas state law is clear — the US Supreme Court’s interpretations of Title VII apply to analogous provisions in the TCHRA.

Some light from down here in Texas after a long string of self-inflicted pies in the face.

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Pres. Biden’s pause on new leases for oil and gas drilling will have marginal impact on production, according the US Energy Information Administration. The agency expects crude production in 2022 to fall by fewer than 100,000 b/d on average as a result of the administration’s order on leasing.

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Note that the same people who are upset about a handsy French cartoon skunk getting ‘cancelled’ were fine with a presidential candidate who “grabs ’em by the pussy.” At least they’re consistent.

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The GOP now has another entertainer’s back (Tucker Carlson) instead of the military’s.

President Biden announced that two female generals were in line to become combatant commanders and that initiatives were being pursued to recruit and retain women to the US military.

Tucker said, among other things that “China’s military becomes more masculine … our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, more feminine.”

The Pentagon issued a statement attempting to address Carlson’s ignorance, adding that “What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host.”

Noted veteran Col. Alexander Vindman put it this way: “Tucker Carlson dishonors the service and sacrifice of all women who have served in the Armed Forces. Many who paid the ultimate sacrifice. He’s never served anyone but himself, but would deny soldiers the means and equipment to be effective. #HereRightMatters”

And Republicans side with Tucker.

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Even so, like Jefferson, I would prefer newspapers without government to government without newspapers.

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